Good Aligned Drow PC Party

First I'll give you guys the situation then I'll pose a few problems i foresee and hopefully you guys can give me some good advice
1) I'm getting ready to gm my latest campaign and in it all of the characters are good aligned drow. Its in my homebrew campaign setting. The basic premise is that while the characters were young (by elf standards at least but still quite young) they were accompanying a drow raiding party to learn the ways of their people. Well, the raiders were defeated and the young drow were to be executed, but a half-orc druid who helped defuse the raid pleaded for their lives and took them under his wing. They were cleansed of their evil taint via an atonement spell but as part of the requirement to the spell they were forced to take an oath to nature and to good. As to be expected the party is comprised of characters of a wilderness background (ranger, druid, and barbarian).
2) Problems:
a) Daylight Adaptation: give it for free at first level or make the characters take it as a feat?
b) Drow weapon proficiencies: having not fully grown up as drow do i change these to something more applicable?
c) Handling a party that will most likely provoke attack from both frightened humans and hateful surface elves? How do I ever take them into a city without using spells to hide their heritage?
d) So far I'm at best going to have only 3 pcs. This prevents a severe disadvantage to the party (partially tempting me to want to give them daylight adaptation).
e) Other problems that are sure to pop up that I overlooked that you guys might think of

A) Make them take it as a feat. If, during the time they spent on the surface they mainly kept to the shadows and a nocturnal scedule, then they're still not used to daylight. If they spent time getting used to the sun, then they spent a feat getting Daylight Adaptation.

B) Keep the proficiencies the same. If the characters were of an age when they were even considdered for being taken on a surface raid, then they've already learned the arts of handling drow weapons.

C) Suck it up, and don't do anything to help the characters. They're playing members of a race that is universally hated and reviled. People will not like them. Make the players deal with that on their own. "Sure, Carl used to be a member of the KKK, but he's an okay guy now." Life sucks, get a helmet.

D) Bunnies are soft.

E) Well, their families think they're dead along with the rest of the raid, so there shouldn't be any problems with other drow looking for 'em. Nothing really springs to mind outside of the normal problems of getting by in a world that despises your existance and would like to see you dead.

I do plan on at some point (once the characters gain some fame and start getting a reputation of being good) having one of the characters family members go looking for him and try to bring them back to the underdark. Hopefully, the players will rebel against their old ways (being evil drow that is) and try to flee the underdark (fun with getting lost underground) then that gives me a way to put a bounty on their heads from the drow higher ups.

You don't need to have the Drow put the bounty on their heads -- all they have to do is sneeze the wrong way in an Elvish village, and they'll have a bounty on their heads.

Which, in fact, could give you the first adventure -- The PC's and their mentor, being all wicked, reviled creatures, are captured (leader killed!) by an elvish party seeking to exterminate the evil humanoids! Maybe the PC's are brought back on a leash to be sacrificed gloriously for the elven cause, to fully embarrass them and rally the elves. They can do a few things here, either talk their way out of it (good Cha!) or fight their way out of it (the perhaps more likely approach). Either way, some elvish cleric wants them dead, and it's not hard to convince the world that they're evil.

Don't force them to go into a city -- there's no real need to, as this party is pretty self-reliant. Keep them in contact with a sympathetic village if you really need to (maybe the half-orc druid was helping a small community farm, and so the farmers are nice to the PC's), but otherwise, the more they can look the part of the dangerous outsiders, the better.

All those centuries of bitterness and hatred from a people who can still see their racial memories of their children and loved ones pierced, mutilated, and poisoned, dying and pathetic, don't just evaporate because the PC's do one good deed. Make it hard for them. They could've just chosen to be elves, part of the appeal of the drow is the 'outcast and preceived evil' ideal. They should eat it up.

And like others said, make them choose Daylight Adaptation as a feat....if they're only skulking around in the darkness, it'll further their rep as wicked beings, which will make it all the more special when they have a farmer's family that they can hold up with (until, of course, those hunting the PC's find out who's been harboring them.......)

dontpunkme said:

a) Daylight Adaptation: give it for free at first level or make the characters take it as a feat?
b) Drow weapon proficiencies: having not fully grown up as drow do i change these to something more applicable?
c) Handling a party that will most likely provoke attack from both frightened humans and hateful surface elves? How do I ever take them into a city without using spells to hide their heritage?
d) So far I'm at best going to have only 3 pcs. This prevents a severe disadvantage to the party (partially tempting me to want to give them daylight adaptation).
e) Other problems that are sure to pop up that I overlooked that you guys might think of

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a) consider to make it even mandatory to take it at 1st level, because it just fits their background perfectly (and the feat is very useful in their case)
b) the bonus proficiencies are more a cultural thing than a racial thing, therefore you have a good point here: in general, it is a good DM's choice to change a bonus from culture if the character has been raised in a different culture... the problem is that the Half-Orc race doesn't have anything to offer in exchange ; maybe it is best to still keep those proficencies, perhaps they were already trained when very young
c) that totally depends on your setting: if drows are seen as deadly enemies anywhere, there's nothing you can do about it, but probably you MEANT to have such a campaign; otherwise, why shouldn't there be large cities where every race is welcome? or a kingdom where some drows have gained their respect and are actually standing in good politics positions? or otherwise, the party could have a mentor (NPC or organization) which somehow guarantees that they are trustable
d) don't know if you are complaining that they are too few...

e) IMHO you might encounter problems with the ECL.
Having one LA PC is ok, but having the whole party with 2 class levels less than their ECL can become a problem. If you are balancing encounter with CR appropriate for the ECL, the whole party will be (1) weak in hit points, (2) one level of spells behind, (3) having lesser BAB and ST and other stuff. On the bright side, they will all be protected with Spell Resistance, and therefore spellcasting enemies are going to be much easier to defeat.
In this particular circumstance, when everyone is not just +2 LA but also of the same race (which means the party slightly less versatile), I would suggest you to DROP the Level Adjustment by 1. After all, Drow's LA is basically built up by:
- total bonus of +4 in abilities (+1 LA)
- spell resistance (+1 LA)
However, the first one simply means nothing if every PC has the same bonuses, because you might as well have simply ruled a different ability-generation method to achieve the same average increase without even mentioning LA.

Sorry, just a quick aside here. If it's a homebrew world, why is there an Underdark? Should we assume that it is similar or even identical to the Underdark in Forgotten Realms, or is it somewhat different?

dontpunkme said:

1) I'm getting ready to gm my latest campaign and in it all of the characters are good aligned drow.

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We must now kill you. It's nothing personal.

hong said:

We must now kill you. It's nothing personal.

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Or at least post this:

No, its not the underdark, but I figured rather than use my term for it (the Great Deep) just to keep it simple. As per the party having some way of letting outsiders know their intentions, they belong to the Wardens of Nulimil (an organization of barbarians, druids, rangers, and any other people that revere Nulimil, my diety of nature). Stating this however or showing proof of membership will not really mean squat to most people, as they could have just as easily killed members of the organization and stolen them. They're going to initially face the predjudice their people would, until they prove themselves (barring being framed for hellish crimes to help make the process more difficult). Even then they likely will not be trusted by all people. They are going to have to rely heavily on allies that they meet and mainly keeping a low profile.

All Drow Fan-Boys must DIE!!!

Serioulsy, WTF!!, Good Aligned Drow Party, I never realized that today's gamer were this friggin jaded!